INSIGHT ISSUE 01 | 2021

11 Arguably one of themost critical external challenges is a common language to talk about impact, sustainability and specifically climate change. Making progress against the world’s challenges is a complex task requiring governments, NGOs, companies and the general public to work together. We need a common language to set common goals, discuss their implications and design programmes of action to progress against them. We can certainly see progress in the ongoing efforts to harmonise how organisations report against ESG (e.g., the WEF project, the EU efforts to create a common taxonomy), and how they set climate targets, such as adhering to the SBTi recommendations, but we’re at the early stages of this journey. A second key challenge for companies is their interdependency on policy. A lack of coherent policy, for instance within and between countries on their energy transition, creates uncertainty for companies and can constrain ambition and diminish investment. The greatest internal challenge to setting and implementing sustainability is ensuring it’s an integral part of the business model aka the formula for success, and strategy. This requires significant effort, judgement, and choice. Too often sustainability is “bolted on,” creating trade-offs with the way a business considers its approach to long term value creation as opposed to a key part of it, leading to sub-optimisation of both. INSIGHT | Focus On The International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, supported by Deloitte and the other members of the “Big 4” professional services firms, has been leading an initiative to advance delivery of the SDGs and stakeholder capitalism through better corporate ESG reporting. I have been leading the Deloitte input, with a particular focus on the metrics and disclosures related to Governance. The project has been going on c. 18 months and has provided a fascinating insight into the opportunities and challenges in the reporting domain; the white paper published in September was the result of mass socialization of our initial Davos paper with both companies and investors. In addition to the work with WEF, I am leading an initiative called the “Goal 13 Impact Platform”, named after the 13th SDG: “Climate Action”. It is designed to stimulate corporate learning and collaboration on taking action against climate change. It’s a partnership between the Confederation of British Industry, Deloitte, Chapter Zero, The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project, Dell Technologies and the Met Office. This information-sharing platform holds data on company targets, drivers of change, organisation, climate actions and programmes, and barriers and lessons learned. We’ve started in the UK with over 900 companies contacted and over 200 actively engaged, and are now pushing out into other markets including Italy. The interviews are tremendously insightful, and it’s encouraging to see how motivated organisations are to collaborate with each other. We can classify challenges in terms of external and internal. What are you involved in at the moment? Tell us about it. What are some of the main challenges company leadership faces when setting and implementing sustainability goals? A Deloitte study conducted by Forbes Insights says that in 43% of companies, it is the CEOwho is responsible for implementing sustainability strategy. "WE NEED A COMMON LANGUAGE TO SET COMMONGOALS, DISCUSS THEIR IMPLICATIONS AND DESIGN PROGRAMMES OF ACTION TO PROGRESS AGAINST THEM."